NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre on two separate pleas challenging section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalises unnatural sex, including the carnal intercourse between consenting adults of the same gender.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud sought responses from the ministries of Law and Justice, Home Affairs and Health on two pleas filed by LGBT rights activists Arif Jafar, Ashok Row Kavi and others including Mumbai-based NGO Humsafar Trust which fights for LGBT rights.
Senior advocate Anand Grover, appearing for Jafar, said “this is the first time an arrested man is before the court with a plea to scrap section 377 of the IPC. He was in jail for 47 days.”
Jafar claimed in his plea that he and his four colleagues, who were involved in an outreach and distribution of condoms among men having sex with men, were humiliated and beaten up in public before being arrested by the police under section 109 (punishment of abetment), section 120B (criminal conspiracy), section 292 (sale of obscene books) and section 377 (unnatural offence) of the IPC. (AGENCIES)
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